EPISODE 74

ALPHA SHOT: One-minute Sample

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Taco Mike (00:00:00):
Difficulties and challenges escalate that happened, which is my fault. I accept an own full responsibility. I put them there. It doesn’t count when your apology is from place of victimhood. Those apologies are worthless. In fact, they do more harm than good. It’s more destructive for me to pretend didn’t happen, to gaslight, to try to deflect. That causes me more pain than the pain of just being like. I did it. I don’t want to be a villain. I don’t want to blame. I don’t want to harm. I don’t want to be a victim either.

Brad Singletary (00:00:34):
If we can just tell the truth and come clean and admit when we’re wrong, it seems to work out. There’s freedom in it.

Taco Mike (00:00:41):
When we own our complete and catastrophic failures, I think it’s a super power.

Brad Singletary (00:00:47):
That’s super alpha. Where are you going to start? You got to have some people around you who can guide you. You need to be asking for that. You need to go intentionally seeking it,

Taco Mike (00:00:56):
Continually do the next right thing.

Intro (00:01:07):
If you’re a man that controls his own destiny, a man that is always in the pursuit of being better. You are in the right place. You are responsible. You are strong. You are a leader. You are a force for good gentlemen. You are the alpha, and this is the Alpha Quorum.

Brad Singletary (00:01:32):
Welcome back to the Alpha Quorum Show. Brad Singletary here. I’m so glad to be back with my buddy Taco Mike tonight, we wanted to talk about responsibility. So an alpha is responsible. He does good. It admits his wrongs and makes amends. And he accepts the things that he can’t change and changes the unacceptable things that he can. So let’s get started here tonight, man, you were talking about tools and Mike, I got to tell you that one of your best tools is your language. So you’re very articulate. You’ve got this sophisticated way of communication and it’s very good. It’s simple, but in terms of your self growth and your like personal development, the healing and the things that you’ve done in recovery and all that you’ve worked at in your life, you have great language. And when I think about the language of responsibility, it takes being able to say certain kinds of things.

Brad Singletary (00:02:34):
So I wish I could remember off the top of my head, some of the things that you’ve said, but I remember him. One of the, I think it was the solo podcast that you did about confidence. And you just said, you know, I’m the kind of person who can figure this out. I’m the kind of person who can take this. I’m the kind of person who can learn from my situation. You’ve used things like, Hey, I’m, I’m just an idiot. I’m just a dirt bag. I’m just whatever. And the way you talk about yourself, the way you talk about the things that you need to do, it’s very impressive. Like the way you describe your faults, your, your past mistakes and failures, the way you talk about what you’re still trying to do. So I think one of the tools going back to tools, one of the tools that men need is how to talk about their own responsibilities, how to talk about their failures, how to talk about what it is they need to be accountable for. How do you, how have you gained some of that magic language? Where did you get it from?

Taco Mike (00:03:44):
You’re ha you’re too nice. I need to come back here more just so I can have you say nice things about me, which I do not deserve, but appreciate that. The thing I think that’s, I think everybody needs to figure out a language that works for them. Here’s an example. Most people know that I am Mormon, but I’m not a very good one because most of what happens in organized religions and especially in Mormonism, it doesn’t work for me. And it doesn’t resonate with me. And I remember the moment that I sort of accepted that there was something happening and someone’s reading. We all have a Bible in our house. Most of us have a King James version Bible in our house that doesn’t do crap for me. I could sit down and read that, and it does not chime to me. And a lot of us also have a prayer language that we’re supposed to use, like our, our religion or our denomination imprints on us, sort of a format or a structure.

Brad Singletary (00:04:49):
Here’s the template for praying

Taco Mike (00:04:52):
Bingo and some of us went out on missions for churches that had little flip cards that told people you’re supposed to do it this way. This is what God likes, any other way, God doesn’t like it. And I remember sitting in, in a Mormon meeting one time and someone’s reading from the King James Bible. And it just, I got nothing. It meant nothing to me. And it just, something in my brain just went click. Then don’t read that, get a different version. What’s to stop. What’s who’s why don’t you just go on and find some other version that’s got like a more, a better, easier to understand format. And then, and then I remember one time defending against this was, this was earlier, but I remember one time somebody sort of, well, I think I was on my mission and somebody said, Oh no, you know, I don’t know that I want to use this official Mormon Bible, the King James, because I use this other one.

Taco Mike (00:05:44):
And then we had to talk them out of that and tell them, no, this is the only one that’s approved. Cause anything else in there could be a shadow off of the truth or whatever. Who cares? I don’t care. Please write me a letter, please, please disabuse me of this. But, but I don’t care. What I do care about is the intimacy, the relationship, the feeling, the vibe that I have with Jesus. I care about that. I don’t give a rat’s about whether you use this Bible or that Bible I care. And I just remember in my brain, just this moment that like, I’m over it, I’m over reading a Bible. I don’t understand I’m over praying with words that don’t make any sense to me that don’t, don’t reflect who I am as a person or how I talk. It felt like I was having a third party interaction with this deity that I, that I did want to have an interaction and a relationship with.

Taco Mike (00:06:34):
And I just, I was over it and I was done and I never looked back and it has allowed me to, to grow and to evolve and deepen sort of that whole relationship part of who I am as a person. It’s a weird way to answer your question. Here’s the punchline. I think, I think that when people don’t feel comfortable in their own skin, they hunt around for language. They hunt around. For words, I think it’s about being confident and comfortable with who you are as a person. And if there’s, if, if someone has hangups, if somebody has baggage, if somebody has these you’re inauthentic, which is kind of one of those Oprah ways of saying like, you’re really not who you are, like, you’re sort of Shu your life. May you may be living this life. That’s not really your life. You’re just sort of stuck in this situation, in this world that it’s not who you are.

Taco Mike (00:07:26):
And you’re just trying to fake it till you make it please. Everyone else kind of, and if one of these days, if you get some balls and you just sort of like realize what does and what doesn’t work and figure out how to make it your own then you could like flower, like it could that’s again, a drop back the Oprah it’s Oprah talk, stop me, please write me an email and tell me to stop doing this. I’m trying not to do that. If you figure that out, there we go. That’s how you say it. Then I believe anyone and everyone can just sort of like freaking come on fire. And maybe your gift is language. Maybe that’s mine, but maybe your gift is something else. And if you can sort of like light up with who you are as a person, people are going to resonate with that.

Taco Mike (00:08:19):
People are going to appreciate that. They’re going to value that. And then you are adding alpha value into your community. And so you’re adding that into your family, whatever, maybe it’s, you know, it’s music, maybe it’s, I don’t know. I’m just getting weird here. Maybe it’s sports, maybe it’s whatever who knows. But I just think when you really become who, the person, you are, your little DNA cells who you are in there and you stop with all the nonsense pretending, then you just become, you’re just lit up. And so maybe that’s a long, sorry for that. But maybe that’s how I explain it.

Brad Singletary (00:08:51):
I love itt. And just the example of talking about prayer language and stuff like that. I’ve heard Mike pray before and here’s how he starts it. Well, God, it’s us again. It’s the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s the, some of you been around Mike and ways that you’ve heard him pray before, but anyway, that’s that I love what you’re saying. And I think this is a message that I’m, I’m receiving in multiple areas of my life right now, but language. Yes, that’s that is a gift that you have. And you’re saying if a man really comes to terms with who he is and he’s living authentically as himself, he’s keeping it real, then he will know the things that he needs to say. It’s interesting. It’s an interesting way to look at it, such a deep way to talk about that. I’m curious about the guy who would say the words, you know, he needs to take responsibility for something he, but he’s never, he’s never uttered the words my bad.

Brad Singletary (00:09:54):
He’s never apologized to someone before because of pride or ego or because of whatever, the reason he just can’t say the words he’s, he’s never said it before. And so to say it out loud to kind of practice it out loud. That’s something that I do with people sometimes repeat after me say these things and it becomes, it’s kind of locked in now as a tool that I’ve used before. And I can go back to what are the words of responsibility. And maybe what we can do here for a minute is just kind of go back and forth and rattle off a bunch of words that we say, or that we’ve heard men say, when they’re taking responsibility for their own life, their own outcomes, their own situations, not seeing themselves as a victim. What are the words that we need to learn to use in order to take responsibility?

Taco Mike (00:10:46):
They seem obvious don’t they? That question deserves a little bit of searching to try to come up with a good vocabulary. Are there guys out there that just don’t have those words?

Brad Singletary (00:10:56):
They just don’t, they don’t, they, they don’t have the words. They don’t even have the recognition that they need that they’re missing those, that language. I think I’ve heard people say things like, you know, this one’s on me. I don’t know. Maybe it was a coach that you know, I was on a team and we lost a game or whatever. And the coach would say, and the coach is not on the field, but the coach would say, guys, this one’s on me. This was on the planning. This was on the strategy this week. This one’s on me. That is that’s, that’s super alpha. That’s that’s taking back the leadership almost. That’s almost kind of saying it’s just powerful to acknowledge your role in things. This one’s on me, my fault. I did it. I did it. You’re right. You’re right. Is a, is a powerful one to just say, you’re right. I get what you’re saying. I get, I get it. That’s true. That’s language. You’re right. This is true. This is true. That did happen or

Taco Mike (00:11:57):
I did do that thing. I did. That’s my fault. I own it. I can own that. That’s a good, that’s a really good one. I can own that. Okay.

Brad Singletary (00:12:06):
I don’t that I can take responsibility for that. Yeah.

Taco Mike (00:12:09):
What you’re saying is, is, is landing. Yeah. This is, you know, that concept of like cognitive dissonance, where your brain just can’t process. Valerie. One time, Valerie demic. One time I asked her kind of about cognitive dissonance, where your brain has to separate, like you’re conscious and your subconscious, your subconscious. I was asking Valerie one time about somebody who was like smacked upside the head with truth, that they were not prepared to receive. She said, she’s had people black out, pass out, go dark, the lights, turn off because they’re confronted with something that they’re, sub-conscience like their inner being. They know that’s true. But the, you know, the layer where they operate the public self, the persona self, like that self can’t deal. And so like the, the circuits just jammed and she’s like, she’s like, yeah, on one or two occasions, I’ve just had somebody like tilt over and pass out.

Brad Singletary (00:13:12):
Yes. Popped a breaker. The breaker broke.

Taco Mike (00:13:16):
That’s so funny. Exactly. Right? Like tilt, like their eyes rolled back, tilt, ding, ding, ding, ding. And they just went to sleep. I remember once upon a time when I was a total piece of garbage person, my wife or other people confronting me with things that my sub-conscience had to accept a new what’s true. But my operational system, you know, this, this image that I’m projecting, that person did not want to face that. And I remember my sort of emo would be to just have this blue deer in the headlights, look just this like a blank stare. And I’ve seen that I’ve seen so many people do that and I completely get it. I completely understand. It’s where you’re confronted with the reality that you are unwilling. I am unwilling to accept. It’s true. And I know it’s true, but my persona is not going to let that be true. I’m not going to speak. I’m not going to say I’m not going to acknowledge. I continue to deflect and hide out of fear. And I’m an deer in the headlights. Have you ever seen that look? Yeah.

Brad Singletary (00:14:22):
Yeah. It’s like, it’s like, you’re sparking, like you touch the ends of the jumper cables together. It’s just short, short now.

Taco Mike (00:14:32):
So when you, when you see somebody sitting in a chair, like you probably have this all the time, you’re talking to somebody and you’re just sort of like presenting to them like this is it. This is the reality of a situation. And they’re just like, they they’re void the eyes. Just like don’t run nothing registers.

Brad Singletary (00:14:47):
I love how you’re validating this because I think it’s such a common thing even then may be a way to respond to that. Like I need a minute, you know, I want to consider what you’re saying. This is shocking to my system. Let me, let me, let me consider this for a minute. Let me write it down. Let me process this. I wanna, I wanna see where you’re coming from. I’m feeling a little defensive about it right now, but I want to get there. I wanna, I can let me ponder this a little bit and see if I can understand more about your perspective.

Taco Mike (00:15:23):
Genius. That’s super powerful. I did not. I was not equipped once upon a time I was not equipped. I just went deer in the headlights and then I probably gas lit and then probably tried to dance. And probably what I did was like overpower like dominance, maybe like raised voice or whatever, but that’s all just, that’s all just me, my ego. Not allowing reality to be there. So those are really good. Those are really good. That’s really good coaching.

Brad Singletary (00:15:49):
I really like what you just said there about, I wasn’t, I wasn’t skilled. I didn’t have the capability to do that once upon a time. How did he get there? You guys, he opened himself up to a tribe. He opened himself up to professionals. He opened himself up to the people in his life that he loves and he learned a lesson. That is all. Those are just such good examples. I love that. I love how you talk about the way that you’ve grown. I didn’t know how to do that at one point. And now I’ve learned some things. I’ve got tools. You talk about tools a lot. So, so language, yeah. You might need some help with some language. We’ve shared a few thoughts there about some of those. I’m trying to think of there are others…

Taco Mike (00:16:35):
And it’s okay to like admit defeat, like you’re listening to this and it’s okay to just say, like I suck at that. I don’t do any of those things. I don’t know how to do those things. I don’t operate at that level. Okay, cool. Like fine. Just own it. Just say whatever and figure out ways that you can. I think we’ve, you’ve talked about this many times, see a shrink talk to your tribe, figure something out, have a beer with your buddies and then ask them what they do when somebody is like in your face with something that they don’t really want to like, have a, have a pizza and a beer and like talk to talk to other dudes about this specialty specifically dudes, you know, who are going to give good advice and who have good wisdom to share. Okay. So if you’ve got friends and you go and ask F from the perspective, you want revalidation of you being a Dick, like, okay, that’s a bad move. You need to like level up. And maybe heck maybe this is exposing the reality that you don’t have many friends who have leveled up. I’m sure you do. But maybe this is a good way to realize. I need to, like, sometimes you go down these rabbit holes and they expose so much, that’s just not good in your life, but where are you gonna start?

Brad Singletary (00:17:46):
Yeah. Most of the times in my life, when I’ve been the most irresponsible. And when I saw myself as a, as a victim or when I was being the villain, all of those had to do with me doing it alone. No one had any idea about the choices I was making. No one had any idea. I wouldn’t dare let anyone know how I handled certain circumstances. And so great point again about, you got to have some capable men around you who can who can guide you. You need to be asking for that. You need to go intentionally seeking it and get connected that way.

Brad Singletary (00:18:26):
So one of the things under responsibility is that he’s reliable. He follows through, he keeps his promises. You know, you’ve heard about the, kind of the cliche thing where the, you know, the parents are divorced and the dad is supposed to pick up the kid and the kid’s sitting by the window on a Friday. You know, he’s just waiting for dad to come and pick him up. And that just never happens if there’s any just disgusting habit that men have. It’s not following through in my mind, especially when it comes to your loved ones, especially if you’ve promised something, especially if this has to do with, you know, your children, but even on your job, even in, even in things with, you know, friends or neighbors or whatever that you may be involved with to be reliable, that’s pretty alpha, you know, just doing what, doing what you agreed to do. What about reliability?

Taco Mike (00:19:22):
Those are all good. I also think that it’s important when you’re not reliable. Again, maybe we circle back and we kind of like hit some of these previous things. There are times where I know I’m not reliable and I hope I probably do this badly, but I hope that I own it, that I accept that I’ve screwed up and then try to figure out how to make an amend or to sort it. Right. so integrity comes into here. It’s important to be reliable. It’s important to cultivate that, but it’s also important than to accept when you’re not. And then to do what can be done to repair that and to fix that as best as possible. I think you cannot be an adult man and not know the concept of reliability. This one, I think this one needs no explaining. Right?

Brad Singletary (00:20:08):
I agree with you again. There’s I look like what you’re saying about when you’ve fallen through, when you haven’t been reliable there’s language on that, you know, I dropped the ball on this one, this one’s on me. You didn’t deserve that. I sh I could have done better.

Taco Mike (00:20:23):
Another thing that I was kind of thinking about with these words, you’re, you’re teaching these very solid vocabulary points. Here’s something else. It doesn’t count when your apology is from place of victim hood. Have you ever heard an Impala? Do you know what I’m saying? I’m such a, like, I’m sorry. I’m such a loser. I don’t know what you know. I don’t know why you were so mad. I guess it’s my fault. I’m just a loser

Brad Singletary (00:20:47):
Was just the worst husband in the world.

Taco Mike (00:20:49):
Totally. I’m trying to like channel what it’s so pathetic. It’s so pathetic. I never do anything. Right. Totally. You hear that? You must hear that. Right? I’ve said that before. Never do anything, right. You know, I can never measure up to you. I can never, it’s always my fault. That is not accepting responsibility. There’s nothing alpha about that. I’m sorry. I’m digging at you for your past these past moments.

Brad Singletary (00:21:15):
But I deserve it, dude.

Taco Mike (00:21:17):
There was nothing attractive or interesting or alpha about any of that. Those apologies are worthless. They’re worthless. In fact, they do more harm than good. Just be quiet, shut your mouth. And I’ve done it. Look, I’ve done them too. So when that’s happening, there is, there is no yardage gain. There is no traction happening. That’s just, that’s dead air. Please stop that. If you’re that guy figure that out and please stop doing that. The people in your life are going to be grateful for it.

Brad Singletary (00:21:46):
So much of your power as a man really comes from whether or not you command respect. And that’s one of those things where that just completely SAPs any respect that drains any respect that you may have. It makes it all. You’re just clicking down a few notches. Your respect has just gone out the window when you’re making yourself a victim in your apology. So in being responsible, part of that is that you’re maybe serving other people. You’re helping other people. In some ways, you’re a rescuer of those who may need that because you have a duty. You’re a strong man and you can help others and lift others. But you have to be careful about that and have boundaries. So in being responsible, you know who to let in and who to leave out. Some people you let into your conversation. Some people you let into your personal, the details of your life and others, you don’t, you have to know really what that is.

Brad Singletary (00:22:41):
And that’s important when it comes to responsibility. One of my old bosses used to say, your allies can quickly become your adversaries. Your friend, that I heard this a dozen times in my career, the guy lets his buddy who just got laid off. He’s going through a divorce. He lets his buddies crash on the couch and he’s there for nine months, you know, ends up sleeping with his wife, you know? And, and, and no one can maybe predict those things, but without some sense of boundary, you can take responsibility to a level that’s unhealthy for you. And so knowing when to say, when, knowing how much to help knowing when not to get entangled or in meshed with perpetual victims, that’s important too. So you’re a responsible person you’re out there giving and loving and serving. And you throw a $20 bill at a homeless person, or you, or you invite someone over for a meal or, you know, whatever may be the case here, helping and serving.

Brad Singletary (00:23:45):
But you can take that too far. You can, you can pull yourself down with that. Sometimes I remember being at boy scout camp in the life saving merit badge, and they talked about, you know, if someone’s drowning, reach out with a stick, throw them a rope. You know, you don’t jump in there after them necessarily because they’re going to probably pull you down. So you, you can reach out to someone with a little bit of distance so that you’re not drown yourself. And that’s important in terms of an alpha being responsible, that you have boundaries, who to let in who to keep out what thoughts you have on that taco.

Taco Mike (00:24:23):
I like the analogy of the guy crashing on your couch. Metaphorically. We’ve probably been in a lot of situations like that. And you’ve got your wife and your kids are like, dad, get this idiot out of here. Like this is killing us. The longer you prolong that, then the worse it gets. And then the more disloyal that chore family believes you are being towards them. Because ultimately, who are you more responsible to? Who are you more loyal to your, you know, your old college roommate who granted is in a legit, hard up situation like that? Poor dude, you know, his wife, whatever he’s kicked out of the house. Okay. Bummer, bummer. That sucks. Now he’s bringing his suck Fest into your house. And now your house has turned into those suck Fest too. And then these people that you owe first position loyalty to their now second position.

Taco Mike (00:25:07):
Cause it’s, you’re basically demonstrating like, no, I like this guy better. I like this guy more. I love this guy more. So how that looks like is to just, you know, lay it down and be like, look Phil, like I dig you. We’re brothers. We’ll always be brothers, but we can’t do this anymore. Here’s a hundred bucks. I’m going to get you a week of hotels, whatever. Like I’m not going to kick her out on the street. But I think it’s going to require you as the alpha to figure out how you transition. And this is just one situation, but we’re basically talking about times and areas of life where you’ve gotten yourself into. You’ve gotten yourself stuck. How do you extricate? How do you get out of these situations? So that’s on the backside. If you have good boundaries, maybe this dude never comes into your house to begin with.

Taco Mike (00:25:54):
Maybe this dude lives in a tent in your backyard because you’re like, look, man, because maybe you’ve got a situation where you, you know, you just kind of understand the temperament of your wife. This has happened before. Like, and so, you know what happens when you let somebody in you’re too lax, you’re too gracious. You like bend over backwards. And then your wife ends up hating you and him and everything. So maybe the next time that comes along instead of this guy, even hitting your couch, you offer him a couch in the garage, or you offer him a spot in the backyard for a tent, or you just hook them up with a week of hotels. He doesn’t even come to your property. So these are all these, just examples of ways that you have, you have set a fence like who doesn’t have property, that they put a fence around, who doesn’t have a backyard with a fence who doesn’t have a house with a door.

Taco Mike (00:26:39):
That’s got a lock on it. Windows that have a lock windows that have on them. You’ve got a business and you’ve got property there. You’ve got a chain link fence. There’s barbed wire on top. You’ve got cameras who doesn’t set up all of those precautions to keep numbskulls out. And your buddy, Phil’s not a numbskull, but maybe your buddy Phil doesn’t belong in your house. So you don’t abandon them. So boundaries, that could be an Oprah word. Okay. Set up good boundaries for herself. But I’m just talking about it in terms of like logistics, the boundaries that a person can have for themselves are what are you what’s taught? What are you tolerate? And then do you understand the temperament of the people in your life to know like what their tolerance is? Because mine, I can tell you this. My tolerance is way lower than my wives.

Taco Mike (00:27:22):
I would have anybody come and stay with us at any old time. I would give probably almost anything away. Cause I’m too, maybe I’m a people pleaser. Maybe I don’t care. Maybe maybe I just don’t have the piece of DNA that sort of has those protections built in. I’m probably I’m at the extreme end of that. And so I’ve had people help me understand what, like better and more secure boundaries are. So why does this fit in responsibility? It fits in there because if you’re going to be responsible for yourself and the people in your life, then you have to figure out what you’re going to let into the tent. But an alpha realizes like he’s got to protect, you has to protect, you has to protect himself, his family, his situations. And he does that with figuring out what some of these boundaries are. So I think they think conceptually that’s what it means. So what it means to me,

Brad Singletary (00:28:08):
I worked at Catholic charities one time and I worked in the adoption program, but across the way was the the homeless shelter. You know, this was guys would come in at night. And this was for the most destitute, the poorest of the poor, the people in the most hopeless situation. And there were boundaries. They would get a breathalyzer when they came in at night at seven in the morning, you had to leave. You can’t just camp out there all day long. They have to clean up, they got to wash the sheets and everything. That was a good example to me, of boundaries. You can give and love and serve and make sacrifices and help people. But if you don’t have some rules in place and some framework for restriction, I guess, or where, where are the limits of this thing? It could, it can quickly get out of hand.

Taco Mike (00:28:55):
Yeah. There’s guidelines. So you’re bringing up some really, really interesting thought streams there. Like if you’ve got a, let’s see you’ve got a wife or a spouse, who’s a substance abuser and it’s causing great harm. Think about that. Children, people in business, people that you work with, think about ways that people can do you harm. And then how do you set up a framework of these are my tolerance. Like this is all I’m willing to tolerate. These are the base guidelines of this established relationship. And I will not tolerate or accept behavior actions be on this line. And what is the line and where do you draw it? And how does it get negotiated? These are tough conversations to have. There’s no right. Or there’s no absolute. They can’t be black and white. You can’t just in my opinion, I don’t think you can just say it can’t be ever this because I mean, there are some, again, it’s just so tough. Like you would say, there just can’t be certain sexual grievances. Like there are some things that have zero tolerance lines, but then others are going to be maybe gray or more fluid or move around or there’s going to be some forgiveness and renegotiation and just sort of like visit it again. These are hard conversations to have.

Brad Singletary (00:30:17):
The ability to say no and alpha knows how to do that. Sometimes the answer has to be no, sometimes the answer has to be, no, I can’t help you. Sometimes the best help is no help. So we have, while we have responsibility, I think some men are out there trying to save the world and trying to do too much. And they drown themselves in the process because they can’t say no. Or they can’t say here, I’ll throw you the, the buoy and I’ll pull you in.

Taco Mike (00:30:43):
That was really good about the Catholic charities. Yeah. Cause I can totally visualize, like you got to sign a contract probably to get in there. You got to blow. If you don’t like hit some of those bare minimum, it’s like, you’re not welcome here. Sorry. I don’t know what to tell you

Brad Singletary (00:30:56):
You know you have nothing. We know you have no other option, but this is still there. There’s still a rule. So we did an episode called wrong pole and it’s what the alpha, how the alpha responds when he is wrong. That’s a big part of responsibility is that sometimes you’re going to be wrong. And I believe that you have to admit when you’re wrong and then make amends for that. So some of this, frankly does in fact come right from the 12 step literature on, you know, promptly admitting when you’re wrong. There’s power in that. That seems counter-intuitive to your ego to admit when you’re wrong, you see these politicians and stuff. And anytime there’s any accusation, this is the type of stuff in that book. The 48 laws of power, you know, never admit, never admit to wrong, you know, never even give it any credibility. Don’t even answer the complaint because you, you lose your power. That’s not actual power. So admitting when you’re wrong, making a men’s Mike, I know that it’s something that you seem to do very well and that you’ve done a great deal of work in your own life with talk about that. Some admitting when you’re wrong, making amends.

Taco Mike (00:32:11):
I take guys down to Mexico from time to time. And I, and I, and I do it in a way that I think is beneficial to them. And to me specifically, especially anyway, and we go down and we have these experiences. And I, when, when I take guys down, there’s sort of like different levels of intensity, you know, with anything like sports or motorcycles or anything. You’ve got guys who are ultimate hardcore, and then guys who just, they just want to have like, you know, we want to go for a run, let’s go for like half mile run, then we’ll get lunch. Okay. And then you guys, you got guys who are like ultra marathoners, right? Okay. So there’s these big, broad spectrums then. And like, that’s how it is with anything. So earlier this year in the spring, I took some guys down and this was just a fun run.

Taco Mike (00:32:52):
This was, this was dudes who were affiliated friends. And there were, there were no sort of expectations on this trip. And I got us into trouble. I got us into a bad situation. The nuts and bolts of it is here’s just kind of a high-level view. We went down and these guys had been down previously the year before, and we was a fun run. It was super chill, great time emphasis on like beach riding and tacos. Fantastic. It was amazing. Prior to the trip, I sort of probed him a little bit and was like, Hey, do you guys want to like, click it up a notch? Should we make this a little more extreme? Should we like dig a little deeper? Should we take a bigger bite of the Apple? You guys, you guys up for that. And then the response was generally yes.

Taco Mike (00:33:33):
So I got a specific route from a guy who was a hardcore guy. So, so I’m going to right now admit, and I’ve done this to these guys. I freely and readily admit so many wrongs, so many mistakes, but the long and the short of it is, is I got, I got a trail from a guy who was his hardcore. It should have been a red flag. I missed it. I had plenty of opportunities to, to load in to the trip, other trails that were more in line with their previous experience, adding this into the mix, it exponentially upped the game. So guys come down with their machines and I can, it should be my judgment to decide and to observe whether machines are, you know, level one or level 10, like how capable is the equipment? How capable are the riders? So overriding my whole thought process. It was like, Oh, I want to go see this, this the guy that gave me this childlike, like, he’s a cool guy. He goes to cool places like this must be really cool. And he kind of sold it as, this is like a really wild adventure to go.

Taco Mike (00:34:38):
I had that in my head. I want to go, I want to go on and go. That’s very selfish of me and so much so that I sort of blew through common sense evaluations of like, who am I with and how are they feeling? And like, what’s the energy level of these guys. And I sort of selfishly decided unilaterally, like, I’m going to take us down this area and we’re going to go. It ended up going very badly. It required, ultimately required. So there was some dudes who just like hit the end of their physical and mental ability to be on that trip. Have you ever been somewhere, you know, you go to Disneyland, you go to Disneyland and I mean, no disrespect. I’m gonna, I’m gonna use this analogy. But I mean, no disrespect to anyone who is bonked, anyone who was hit the wall, but I just want you to have this visualization because I think it’s important.

Taco Mike (00:35:26):
I think it’s important to see. Not all of us have been around people who have had high level implosions. That’s a thing, you know, you’ve been in sports, you’ve been in football. Were you played college football? You, you know what it’s like to be on the field or to be on the practice court and to have somebody completely come apart. But right. You’ve seen that. Okay. Not all of us have. So the analogy looks like you’re in Disneyland and it’s the morning. And everybody’s having a great time. Everybody’s faces are clean. The kids are clean. The clothes are clean mid day. It begins to sort of get unraveled. The kids are not looking so sharp. They got food stains and sunburn sunburn. And the mom’s hair was once fluffy. Now it’s sort of like hanging down and the dad’s right his shoulders are kind of dragon.

Taco Mike (00:36:15):
And by like three, four cogs, right? You see it by like 4:00 PM. The kids show everywhere you look like every little family group kids are laying on the ground. They’re screaming. They’re like the mom’s dresses pulled off. Cause the kids are yanking on her skirt, the dads after this, why the hell do we come here? And the D just wants to like murder, suicide. The whole thing. Like it goes bad. Sometimes in life. There are these situations where the pressure ramps up the situation escalates difficulties and challenges escalate. And then like, there’s this exponential vector of how badly it goes and how quickly the X and Y axis, they sort of arc up, arc up, arc up. And then all of a sudden it just goes straight vertical. It goes from like this 30 degree up to just 90 degrees, straight up vertical. That’s like 4:00 PM at Disneyland.

Taco Mike (00:37:14):
So we’re in Mexico and it becomes increasingly more and more challenging. We end up not able to get to the destination on day one. And we have to camp in a little ranchers hut, which was amazing and beautiful and fantastic and a blessing. And we camped in this little ranchers hut because it was too difficult to get, to get out day two. We cannot get out the second day we have to go back. We have to retreat back to the ranchers hut. So we’re there the second day, there were some high level implosions, the Disneyland moment that happened at a very high level, which is my fault. I accept an own full responsibility that I put these dudes in a situation when the implosion happened and it did. I put them there. I put them in a situation in a state that pressured them beyond their ability.

Taco Mike (00:38:08):
And though in that moment to continue to endure, but that’s my fault. So it would be gaslighting. This is an example of gaslighting. If I then said, Oh, these guys suck. They couldn’t hang these couldn’t handle it. They couldn’t do it. They couldn’t endure like, you know, they just bonked out. They hit the wall, whatever that’s gaslighting, that’s me deflecting ownership and responsibility and saying, yeah, sucked. And these guys like wanted a tap out, but it’s their fault. No, it wasn’t their fault. My fault. I put them there. I did everything that got us to those points where those, you know, Disneyland moments happen. Those implosions happen. I put them there. So to me, admitting wrongs is difficult. It does not do my pride any. It does not. It is hard for me to own and accept. It does not do my pride any good.

Taco Mike (00:39:10):
And it may not do my business. I mean, it doesn’t do my reputation. It doesn’t do me any good to own and accept where I have screwed up at often, sometimes at very high levels, but it is essential and critical to me and my mental sanity to do that as painful as it is for me to say even own it, admit something like that. It’s more painful to my psyche because of who I’ve been as a person and the journey in life that I’ve traveled in the ways that I’ve really blown up and ruined my life. And in significant ways, it’s more destructive for me emotionally to pretend it didn’t happen to Gaslight, to like try to deflect. That causes me more pain than the pain of just being like. I did it. Do your vocabulary that you talked about earlier, owning it. I did this.

Taco Mike (00:40:03):
It’s my fault. It’s not their fault. Nothing that happened on that trip is their fault. It’s all my fault. And that how that story ended was w did some guys got on sat phones and bless it for that and called a dude’s dad who had a freaking helicopter. And that dude flew down. He flew from, I think Phoenix swooped in, got us out of there. It was amazing. It was incredible. Every part of that experience was incredible. And to me was a growth experience. And then afterwards I sat down and I decided that I was going to have any money spent that any of these dudes had spent in. I returned it, refunded it back out, paid huge amounts of money to have motorcycles taken out, settling up with the helicopter dude, just, I bled a ton of money to repair an amend and correct as best as I could that situation, I sat down and wrote an excruciating letter to these guys.

Taco Mike (00:40:59):
Just sort of like cutting open guts and be like, look, guys, I let you down. I messed up point by point. Like here’s a moment where I could have the outcome could have been different. I could have made a different choice, like click, click, click, click, click, just go down and then send it out to these guys at great personal cause. Like, you know what, again, now I’m kind of like thinking about ways to protect my ego. Again. I want to do that. I want, my default is to self preservation and protection, but that’s not who I want to be as a person. I want to, I want to be the kind of person who’s just as transparent as I can and own it and accept it. So the point of this, of your really great read nine topic here of what is the importance of meaning wrong and making amends.

Taco Mike (00:41:44):
I go to sleep with a clear and full conscience after this really terrible situation. And I am open if anybody, if any of the guys who were on the stripper associate with a trip feel otherwise, I asked to reach out to me because I would like to continue to make sure to correct where I can and have power to those situations in my life that ended up harming and creating harm because I seek not to create harm. Up here, you would even say that in one of your net, I don’t want to be a villain. I don’t want to blame. I don’t want to harm. I don’t want to be a villain. I don’t want to be a victim either. Like I’m not a victim of, of any of that. It costs a ton of money. Woo hoo. Like, so what, it’s my fault.

Taco Mike (00:42:28):
In my opinion, I think an alpha owns and accepts at personal cost and personal expense, any cost in any expense to repair an amend, as best as he can, and then accept the pain, the bullets, the, you know, whatever, whatever he incurs by that ownership. It’s his fault. It’s my fault. It’s my fault. So I own it. I take it, I accept it. What would, what would your life, what would my life look like if I didn’t care? What other people thought or said about me? That’s sort of like this constant thought that just reoccurs on my head many, many, many times. What does my life look like? If I just don’t care? What people say to me that is true. Freedom. Like you talk about freedom. If anybody ever uses the word freedom to me, what the word freedom looks like and feels like is I don’t care what I’m thought of. It’s irrelevant to me. What anybody’s thoughts or opinions are about me. So if this situation creates some sort of like negative I’m over ego, I guess I’m truly not. But I, the ideal is I would like to be past and beyond ego. So it doesn’t matter what people say.

Brad Singletary (00:43:40):
So I wonder if some of these guys, I don’t know if these were people you already knew or were they new to you? I bet some of those respect you a great deal for the way you handled that. Stephen Covey talked about, he had a contractor one time who really met ma messed up something major on a project, cost him, I don’t know, thousands of hundreds of thousands of dollars maybe. And he said that because the man owned it and corrected it. He used him in every project ever since from the, from that point forward because he took responsibility for it and he made it right. And I dunno, I just wonder if the way you handled that actually made guys. I bet you, you got some friends out of that, you know, more than enemies. I hope that that’s the case anyway, where they see where this was, maybe avoidable, but you took responsibility and, and made it right the best you could, including returning their and so forth.

Brad Singletary (00:44:31):
I sometimes our mistakes, the way we handle our mistakes, it really makes a difference in how people see us, the guy who’s defensive, the person who’s skirting the responsibility for it. That’s a person who is despised and hated, but when you can take ownership and really be responsible and do the right thing, I just think you gain a lot more respect that way. And I’m sure some of these guys come out of that with some, with more respect for you than, you know, because of how you, how you handled it, how you admitted it and how you took ownership, made it right.

Taco Mike (00:45:08):
There is this great concept in Christianity that talks about the Christianity. I believe anyway, that talks about how, you know, the concept of Jesus. And you don’t have to believe in Jesus to believe in this concept. It is, is that everyone is redeemable. Everyone can be redeemed in every situation can be redeemed. It doesn’t matter how bad, how terrible, how awful it doesn’t matter how the harm was and how deep the concept and the power of redemption and resurrection and forgiveness is so complete and so thorough that it is capable of redeeming anything I choose to live with that mindset. I choose to live through the concept of it being projected through Jesus. But again, you don’t have to believe in that Jesus story to accept the hopefulness of that concept. And there’s plenty of religions and, and ideals that sort of are based foundationally based around that. I would strongly suggest finding a faith tradition or developing heck create your own. Who’s not to say that my made up religion is any different, better or more wacky than your made up religion. It doesn’t matter who cares, but what is very, very redeeming on a soul level is to have, have a concept and to have a relationship with the power that looks like that.

Taco Mike (00:46:41):
So that you can look at yourself in the mirror, make amends, go to sleep and sleep well, knowing that these misdeeds, that this concept of ultimate forgiveness, that it will work out, that it will be fine. That in the end, somehow it will all be just fine. And I don’t have to fret. I don’t have to obsess. I don’t have to go around and do damage. You know, one of the thoughts that I had initially was like an, Oh dude, I started getting phone calls because the population of people that go to Mexico kind of on these levels is pretty small. And we all kind of know each other, dude, I got like a couple of calls from people who are like, dude telling me this story. Like it’s getting now, like everybody knows what happened and ego, self preservation. I was like, dude, I need to like try to figure out who’s knowing a damage control and maybe make some phone calls and try to explain.

Taco Mike (00:47:28):
And then I, just, to me, like, no, it doesn’t matter. It’ll it’ll all, it’s just fine. It’s fine. The more I try to get in there and do that, if my position really is just make amends and leave it alone, then me trying to like go in and damage control will invalidate that. So I don’t, I didn’t, I left it alone and I’ve had a view. I’ve had a couple of those phone calls and at the end of it, the one, one of them in particular, the guy was like, dude, been there, done that. I’ve had the same thing happened. It wasn’t quite, as, you know, my story didn’t quite go your way, but like been there, done that. So I’ve had some good validation of people sort of using my, the story of my crash and burn here in this instance to say like, yeah, that was, I’ve done that too. I think when we own our complete and catastrophic failures, I think it’s a super power. I really think that it’s very healing for me. Like the only way I can sleep at night is to do it like this. But I think it also is a super power and it’s energizing. And for people who who know they should live like that, but aren’t, but they hear a story like this and I’m like, why can’t I do that in my own life? In my own circumstances,

Brad Singletary (00:48:41):
I heard something recently. I think it was actually Jimmy Durbin who was talking about this too. Who’s saying that so much of our pain comes when our heart is closed. And in this case, I think when our heart is closed to our own failures and our own weaknesses and our own vulnerabilities and our own problems and the things that we’ve created that hurts, that hurts more than the pain of acknowledging it. If we can just be honest and tell the truth and come clean and admit when we’re wrong and just kind of be humble about that. It seems to work out there’s freedom in it. It sounds like that’s what you’ve found is some, some freedom. You felt, you found some freedom by doing the right thing. It’s cost you a lot of money. You cost you some worry. Of course, you don’t want to upset these guys who are your friends, but you you have some freedom from this now. It seems like.

Taco Mike (00:49:41):
I agree. And it can cause you friendships too. I mean, the reality is I haven’t really spoken with these dudes since, and they may never want to have anything to do with me again. And I just said, you have to be okay with that. Like I can’t go in and damage control. And these are hard things to live with. I may have screwed a relationship that’s dead and done and buried. These are all hard things to accept and to deal with. I believe this is what we do as alphas is we, we endeavor to continually do the next right thing at whatever personal cost is incurred. It th the personal cost is irrelevant. Who cares? How much money, who cares, how much time. So what, there are just things in life that are just going to cut you and you’re going to bleed some, you’re just going to bleed out. It’s just going to happen and let it bleed, you know, bleed it, put the tourniquet on it and start the healing, but there’s going to be blood on the ground. It’s just going to happen. You can’t pretend it didn’t happen. You can’t, you can’t look away. Sometimes you just have to look at the blood on the ground and be like, that’s mine. I did that. Where do we go from here?

Brad Singletary (00:50:43):
I’m curious, Mike, about your, did you have people that influenced your choices on that? Did you open up to the situation to trusted friends or loved ones or whatever to, to kind of say, Hey, this is what’s happened. What should I do? I mean, did you just intuitively know you’ve done a lot of work. You’d know how to approach these things already as a very mature man, but did you have others helping you make the decision about the next right thing? Sometimes we don’t know what that is. Did you have, did you get some opinions?

Taco Mike (00:51:17):
Yes, I did. And I hope, look, I hope that this doesn’t sound like Pat me on the back. I do not, I do not want this to be a hero moment for me because I’m not the hero here. The hero is the dude in the helicopter who came and got us the hero or the dudes who, you know, sucked it up and endured and like had great attitudes. And in spite of the terrible situation that I had gotten us into the heroes of this story are those dudes who like chinned up and nut it up and manned up and just, just kept on keeping on those guys are the heroes. I’m, I’m the villain here. So I just want to say that. I just want to verbalize that, but to, to your question, The

Taco Mike (00:52:02):
Yeah, so I called, I have a handful of dudes that I keep in my back pocket, who are, who are sounding boards. One of them, I think you’ll have in soon, Justin Mackie, I got ahold of him and a couple other dudes. And I just say like, look, high level here’s, here’s what went down like, this is my thinking on the matter, can you help, you know, influence and correct, and, and guide as, as this, you know, gets navigated another, another solid buddy, Ben Baki who was with me on this whole trip, solid, solid dude. He was my right-hand man. Great sounding board, great wisdom, great insight. So I think it’s imperative and essential that as, as, as a guy just levels up and alphas up and just continues to like grow in his own life. That can’t happen unless you are bull worked and buttressed and surrounded by dudes who, you know, always have their back. But then I think are just, you look up to like, they’re better skilled and better equipped than you. And hopefully you can be that to somebody and somebody can be that to you.

Brad Singletary (00:53:06):
So that’s being a man that is an unfortunate situation. It sounded like, but you did the right thing. Great example. Another reason why I trust you with the things that I shared with you about my life, and I lean on you the way I do and why I want you to be a part of this whole movement here. So thanks for sharing that, man. The last thing here is about things that we can’t change and changing the unacceptable things that we can. Again, another 12 step thing, kind of from the serenity prayer, talk about acceptance, recognizing the difference between what we can change and not change so much of what happens in life. We really do have options. There really are things that we can do about that. Knowing, knowing, which is which that’s, what takes wisdom.

Taco Mike (00:53:56):
Aren’t there a lot of guys who are confused about accepting and settling, because I think one of the things that confuses dudes is the, the fine line between accepting the situations that you’re in, that you’ve caused or you’re in and just laying down and letting it wash over you. And just then being a mat and saying, we’ll go, well, this is my life. What can I do that? Acceptance is not the same use of the same word. When we talk about accepting things, you can’t change, changing, unacceptable things. You can, the way you have worded it. You’re the wordsmith, the way you’ve worded it here helps illustrate and illuminate the difference between laying down and letting your circumstances. You’re just a floormat to your circumstances versus accepting the reality that you are, where you are. This is just, this is just my life. And then I’m going to set about, and task myself with changing the unacceptable things as I can. How did you, you, you phrased that, that’s your writing? How did you,

Brad Singletary (00:55:10):
Well, some things, we, some things we have to accept and just literally back to the language again, we’d have to just say, this is my reality and I accept it. And maybe there’s nothing that can be done about it, but so many things that are unacceptable. Like, I don’t know my weight, my health, my financial situation, my, my relationships whatever’s going on in your life. There are some things that you, that aren’t okay with you, but you have the ability, you got some power, you have the option to do something about it. And so I think that’s just, that’s what I’m saying. It’s just that some things we really just have to let go of and other things we’ve got to zip up, put her boots on and get with it

Taco Mike (00:55:56):
Actually, this is tough to do. It’s this concept of being a realist and saying like, this is my situation and it sucks, but not being willing to then just arrest and stay there. So it’s this interesting dynamic. It’s this conceptual dynamic of this is my life. This is who I am. This is the body I’m in. Or this is the money that I have in the bank. Like here it is, stopping the denial with the pretending with the, the blaming, like accepting at that level. That’s what we’re talking about. Just slow your roll for a second and be like, this is where we’re at. This is who you are. And then that’s not stopping. That’s just acknowledging so that you can like ch again, slow your roll. Like just calm down for a second and just be like, okay, it sucks. This is where you are. And then once you’ve sort of like acknowledged that then, okay, what do we do now, calmly with, with a great forethought, Karen reason, how do we go pass this point? How do we move past this? Because previous to acceptance is denied. Like, what are some of the, some of the words to describe that?

Brad Singletary (00:57:09):
Yeah. Denial, defensiveness. I mean, there’s so many of those blaming others, a deflection.

Taco Mike (00:57:15):
Anger about it, panic about it, anxiety, all that. I’ve seen good success with that for me. And then with other people, once you just get to that point of acceptance, then you just turn off the volume and the, and the clatter of anger and denial. You just sort of like, that just needs to go away. Like you just need to stop with that. Does that make sense? Does that, does that what happened?

Brad Singletary (00:57:38):
That’s exactly right. Yeah. That’s you can’t really think it through to the next right thing. If you’re not acknowledging the truth of your situation. In one of our episodes, we talked about the little phrase alpha up and you kind of coined that. And what does that mean? And you said, it’s accepting where you are, but that you can choose your way forward. Something along those lines. You, you accept the sucky situation that you’re in, but that you don’t have to stay there. And even if the only actionable thing is a change in your attitude or a change in your interpretation of the event, a change in how you see yourself or other people that may be all that you can do. Your only action may be forgiveness. This may not be undoable. This may not be something that you reverse, but it may be about forgiveness. It may be about taking a step. Again, we’re talking about amends, I guess maybe this is you’re making a men’s with your own self, your value as a person, but sometimes there’s action that can be taken. That’s preventing this thing from happening in the future. Sometimes it’s preparing in a different way so that this doesn’t recur again.

Taco Mike (00:58:57):
When I was down there in that Valley with those dudes in Mexico, one of the things I was not doing that I am guilty of is not fully accepting like the full weight and severity of our situation. I think it should be noted. And this is, I’m not trying to, I’m not trying to justify anything, but I think it should be noted that we were in a situation that was dire and bad. We did have shelter. We had food, we had fuel. We didn’t have injuries, had no mechanical situations. So my level of denial or my inability to accept our situation, I was operating from a standpoint of, I’m a tough guy. I’m a, bad-ass so ego. We’re not lost. We have gas, we have food. We’ve got water. Like my sense of like unwillingness to accept was that to me, these are all wins in our column.

Taco Mike (00:59:46):
Yeah. We have a few negatives. We’re tired. We’re discouraged. You know, those are definitely negatives, but I’m looking at it from a standpoint of like, I got more money in the bank, then I got more credits and debits. So we’re good. The reality is is no, we’re not good. There are dudes who are not seeing it from my perspective. And so my inability to see the lay of the land created a situation where I wasn’t accepting the reality of the situation. And I was continuing to make it worse. So acceptance often. And I say this, and I sound like I it’s, as if I’m doing these things, I’m not doing these things most, so many of these things, please write in, you know what I’m saying? Like, dude, you can pin me where I’m a hypocrite on most of the, almost all of this. I’m an absolute boldface outright hypocrite because I’m not doing most of the things I’ve talked about.

Taco Mike (01:00:42):
Most of the things, these ideals that we’re describing here, I’m not doing a ton of these and I get them wrong and screw them up more often than I get them. Right. That’s does not invalidate the fact that I want to and I try to, and I endeavor to, so to me, accepting and settling are two very, very different things. Accepting what acceptance would have looked like then was to just stop trying guys, just one more Hill, like, look, we’re, we’re almost there. You know, like that’s my mindset. My mindset is like, I got gas and keep pushing. Like, let’s just keep going guys. You know, there’s a little bit more daylight like that. We can just get over this Hill. And I bet you will be able to see, like at some point I just needed to like stop and just accept. And I just didn’t have the ability to do that because I was just too stupidly optimistic or ego or whatever.

Taco Mike (01:01:36):
But the reality is I needed to just sit down sometimes just, you know, wave a flag and just be like, it’s done and let maybe somebody else. And what ended up happening is my good buddy, Nick, my brother, Nick, who was on the trip. He stepped in with the next cooler head, like of, of the hierarchy of cool heads. It should have been me that had the coolest head make sense word picture. But I didn’t because I was delusional. I hadn’t accepted the reality of the moment. Thankfully, the next coolest head, Nicki stepped up and was like, okay, I’m going to take over. I had to, then now here was a moment I had to check my ego because my ego was like, no, no, no, I’m the leader. I’m the guy you can’t like, this is my trip. Like you can’t, you can’t, you can’t now call the shots.

Taco Mike (01:02:24):
I have to call the shots. I had to no joke. I had to walk around where no one could see me. And I fricking like kicked a rock. I kicked the ground. I like punched the air because I had just work out the energy of like, no, I gotta lay down. I gotta give it up. Like, I’m, I’m defeated. This, this moment has defeated me. I have no more tools in the till. Like I’m done, I got to call it. I got to wave the flag. And I did. I went around the corner. Did that came back? And then I basically like in an essence, I don’t know that I said this, but in essence, my mindset was like it, Nick, from here on it’s your trip, like you have proven leadership. You’ve demonstrated like you got a hold of a guy with a helicopter.

Taco Mike (01:03:01):
Like I couldn’t do that. You now are running the program. And I respect that and defer to you and will acquiesce to decisions and shots that you think are best and most prudent to the situation. And my ego was just screaming just on fire. Like this can happen. And there were plenty of even moments where like my brain is just like, pull it back. No, no, no. Like retract again. I did not say that verbally. I did that. I don’t remember that. And then Nick may correct me and maybe I did, but I don’t remember that. But this was my mindset of like, you got the controls, Nick, like it’s yours.

Brad Singletary (01:03:43):
That seems like the most alpha thing of the whole story. What you’re saying right now, just kind of hand over the reins and to, to acknowledge I’m past the point of no return in a way, because I’m stuck in my I’m stuck in self or whatever it is like that that’s the hero moment to me when you released it, when that’s, when you really gained control is when you relinquished it to someone else that paradox of control, it’s it just, it’s something that keeps coming up. I love that you did that, man. That’s to me because he’s, you’re saying he ha he’s less invested with his ego. He comes in there and great ending to that, that, you know, gave him the authority, I guess, that you want it to retain for yourself. That’s powerful. That was a responsible thing for you to do.

Taco Mike (01:04:30):
I had to do it because he, he showed leader. Like the dude stepped up, the dude stepped up made, was making things happen where I was failing to make things happen and forever and ever that moment, like I have this great captured photograph in my brain of like Nick kind of standing on a Knoll that this is like very sort of emblematic of the moment. He’s on a little rock over us. We’re down here, he’s up there. And the sun I’m trying to pay, Hey, this word picture of like the sun is behind him. The light is behind him. And it’s sort of like shining through him. And I just felt like I need to just stand down. Like, Nick’s got this, he’s in charge now. And that again, my ego is like, I don’t want to do this. This can’t happening, but it had to happen.

Taco Mike (01:05:19):
So maybe you’re right. Maybe it is very essential for the alpha to sometimes wave a flag and be like, I’m not alpha right now. Like I can’t do it. I’m too exhausted. I’m too whatever. And to hand it over to somebody who then becomes the alpha and at different points, one of my favorite phrases, Lee Iacocca, he used to say, lead follow or get out of the way. And in that moment I could no longer lead. And so I needed to get out of the way and then follow. And we got out of there and that experience is going to inform me and teach me and carry me forever. Like there will no doubt be moments of leadership in the future that will look and feel just like that. And I will tap into that. And so the, the time and money that, that experience cost is more valuable than any seminar. I could’ve spent my, you know, think about money. You spend on going to a trade show or you take a class or whatever. That’s what I did. I took a class, I paid some money. I took a class, whatever big deal.

Brad Singletary (01:06:25):
And I love that as the final point here, I guess, of this whole thing about responsibility, recognizing your limitations, owning it, handing it over, sometimes doing the next right thing. This has been, this has been awesome. Mike, good to have you back, brother. We’re already talking about some other shows that we’ve got planned. We appreciate you being with us until next time. No excuses. About that. Oh.

Speaker (01:06:51):
Gentlemen you are the alpha is the Alpha Quorum.